Murray : Talking fish - making connections with the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin

The Murray River is the boundary between NSW and Victoria. The river both defines boundaries and unites them with the waters that sustain townships, irrigation and the floodplain forests, including the 70 000ha of the iconic Barmah and Millewa Forest. The river and its floodplain are the traditional lands of the Yorta Yorta and Bangerang people. The Murray is a very different river to the one the Yorta Yorta and Bangerang peoples once knew and fished...

Darling and the Great Anabranch : Talking fish - making connections with the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin

The Lower Darling River and Great Darling Anabranch are located in south west New South Wales. Muddy waters meander over the grey soil floodplains past red dunes, spiky saltbush and gnarled red gums. These are the traditional lands of the Paakintji people. But the land and the river are no longer what the Paakintji once knew and fished...

Upper Darling: Brewarrina to Bourke : Talking fish - making connections with the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin

To say ‘Back o’ Bourke’ means ‘miles from anywhere’ to most Australians, however the Barwon and Darling Rivers that pass by the townships of Brewarrina and Bourke, respectively, are at the heart of the Murray‐Darling Basin. These are the traditional lands of the Ngiyampaa, Murawari and Yuwalaraay peoples (refer Aboriginal language groups in the Bringing back the fish section at the back of this booklet). They fished the river and surrounding waterways and hunted the wetlands. The Ngiyampaa, Murawari and Yuwalaraay people have seen their land and the rivers change...

Ovens : Talking fish - making connections with the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin

The Ovens River rises in the Victorian Alps where it is linked to significant freshwater meadows and marshes. It flows past Harrietville, Bright, Myrtleford and Wangaratta where it is joined by the King River on its way to meet the Murray near the top of Lake Mulwala. These the traditional lands of the Bangerang people and their neighbours the Taungurung and Yorta Yorta peoples. They have fished the river and surrounding waterways and hunted the wetlands. The ebb and flow of water guided their travels and featured in their stories. The Bangerang, Taungurung and Yorta Yorta have seen their land and the river change...

The Coorong and Lower Lakes : Talking fish - making connections with the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin

After gathering water from 23 river valleys, the Murray empties into Lakes Alexandrina and Albert before making its way to the Coorong and out the Murray Mouth to Encounter Bay in South Australia. The entire Murray‐Darling Basin is upstream. Everything that happens there affects what goes on here...

Ambivalent realities : postcolonial experiences in contemporary visual arts practice

This practice-led research project investigates how new postcolonial conditions require new methods of critique to fully engage with the nuances of real world, 'lived' experiences. Framed by key aspects of postcolonial theory, this project examines contemporary artists' contributions to investigations of identity, race, ethnicity, otherness and diaspora, as well as questions of locality, nationality, and transnationality. Approaching these issues through the lens of my own experience as an artist and subject, it results in a body of creative work and a written exegesis that creatively and critically examine the complexities, ambiguities and ambivalences of the contemporary postcolonial condition.

The girlfriend guide to life : love, friends, changes and all that awks stuff answered

A special issue of Girlfriend magazine addressing sexual health, targeted at 14-17 year old girls

Talk Underwater

Short story

Medium and mode : relationships between visual experience and perception in an installation arts practice

Working primarily within the natural landscape, this practice-led research project explored connections between the artist's visual and perceptual experience of a journey or place while simultaneously emphasizing the capacity for digital media to create a perceptual dissonance. By exploring concepts of time, viewpoint, duration of sequences and the manipulation of traditional constructs of stop-frame animation, the practical work created a cognitive awareness of the elements of the journey through optical sensations. The work allowed an opportunity to reflect on the nature of visual experience and its mediation through images. The project recontextualized the selected mediums of still photography, animation and projection within contemporary display modes of multiple screen installations by analysing relationships between the experienced and the perceived. The resulting works added to current discourse on the interstices between still and moving imagery in a digital world.

Downhill

Chapter one of my forthcoming novel, "The Bullroarers", being the creative component of my PHD at Murdoch University (in progress), re-written as a stand alone short story.

Tragedy and assimilation: Occupying the patterned surface

This chapter draws on biographical data about two notable pattern designers of wall surfaces in the interior. Both had personal histories of multiple careers and geographical locations and both their lives ended in mysterious circumstances. One of the pattern designers, Jim Thompson, disappeared in the Malaysian highlands in 1967 and was never found. The other, Florence Broadhurst, was brutally murdered in 1977; her case remains unsolved. This chapter theorizes that the patterned surface attracted Broadhurst and Thompson as a space to occupy and record their divergent pasts, and questions what it is to lose oneself in the surface of the interior, to find freedom (or slavery) in the abdication of control. This notion is further evidenced in creative works, including the Australian film Candy and the work by skin illustrator Emma Hack. What is it to work with the self as a two-dimensional representation in the outside world? Occupying the surface suggests a reflexive relationship with identity, that makes-over and re-shapes truths, lies and re-constructions. The chapter reminds us that the surface is never in stasis.

The cooling steam of the Polar Express : historical origins, properties and implications of performance capture

As the first academically rigorous interrogation of the generation of performance within the global frame of the motion capture volume, this research presents a historical contextualisation and develops and tests a set of first principles through an original series of theoretically informed, practical exercises to guide those working in the emergent space of performance capture. It contributes a new understanding of the framing of performance in The Omniscient Frame, and initiates and positions performance capture as a new and distinct interdisciplinary discourse in the fields of theatre, animation, performance studies and film.

Bound to the borders: Representing refugees in the Australian space

This project consists of a novel and an exegesis that explore the use of fiction to counter negative hegemonic representations of refugees in Australia. The possibilities of using Australian spaces, including border spaces, to reveal tensions surrounding refugee belonging and to highlight the reconfiguration of border sites in the Australian imaginary, is a particular focus of this work.

Experience has no shadow

This research is situated in the field of practice-led research investigating embodied perspectives on the performance of dance making. In the stock of choreographic literature, the celebrated ‘creativity’ label is associated predominantly with the choreographer and is discussed in terms of product rather than process (Lussier-Ley and Durand-Bush 2009; Hennessey 2003). A reliance on the mystery of inspiration or choreographic genius (Penty 1998) for the production of ‘great’ dance works does not acknowledge the complex and timely process common in the creation of dance (Mace and Ward 2002) nor provide a true representation of the creative contributors (Farrer 2014). The failure to attribute creative impulses and skills to dancers is reminiscent of a time when they were thought of only as instruments in the creative process not active participants and collaborators (Jowitt 2001a; H’Doubler 1957). This project asked the question, to what end do dancers contribute to choreography and how is this contribution valued and recognised? Dancers are integral to the creative process. The research found that the scope of a dancers’ creative involvement in the development of a new work is dependent on: the individual choreographers approach to creating movement; the relationship between dancer and choreographer, and dancer and fellow company members; and the dancers collaborative skills and interpretive skills, versatility, and initiative. Recognition and attribution of dancers’ creative input is dependent on a choreographer’s viewpoint, generosity, and prior creative experiences. The work was created as a part of the Ausdance Queensland 2010 Bell Tower III Choreographic Residency program. Applicants were peer reviewed and vetted by a panel of local and national dance producers. The creative work was presented at the Judith Wright Centre for Live Arts. The project was funded by Ausdance Queensland and Arts Queensland. https://es-es.facebook.com/events/106661226023025/?hc_location=stream